The Iris Photography Campaign: World Sight Day 2025

Your iris is unique. So is your story. It’s how you see the faces you love, how you learn, connect, and shape your future. 

But for millions of people around the world, that story is fading because of avoidable sight loss. 

• Over 1.1 billion people live with vision loss today.
• In 90% of cases, it’s preventable or treatable.
• Most live in low- and middle-income countries, where access to basic eye care is still out of reach. 

Without treatment:

• Children fall behind in school.
• Adults lose the ability to work.
• Entire communities are held back — when the solution could be as simple as a pair of glasses, a 20-minute cataract operation, or a course of antibiotics that costs less than £1. 

Your iris sees a world of light. Theirs may soon see nothing at all.

At Orbis, we believe no one should lose their sight simply because of where they were born. 

We are a global eye care charity tackling avoidable blindness by: 

• Training doctors, nurses, and community health workers to diagnose, treat, and prevent eye disease.
• Treating people at risk of sight loss with life-changing surgeries, glasses, and medicines.
• Innovating with technology and our Flying Eye Hospital to reach communities where others can’t.

Trachoma is a painful, infectious disease that causes eyelids to turn inward, scraping the surface of the eye with every blink. If untreated, it leads to irreversible blindness. 

Orbis and our partners are working to eliminate trachoma for good by 2030 through antibiotics, surgeries, hygiene education and sanitation improvement.

Cataract is the leading cause of blindness worldwide and affect children and adults. Yet a surgery taking as little as 20 minutes can restore sight completely.

Orbis supports cataract surgeries in countries across Africa, Asia and South America, transforming lives with a procedure that is safe, fast, and low-cost.

Refractive error is the largest cause of vision loss globally. Yet the solution is simple, affordable, and life-changing. 

Orbis provides glasses and vision correction in schools and communities, with a major impact on children’s education and lifelong opportunities.

Orbis doesn’t just deliver treatment — we create sustainable eye care systems by training local professionals. 

Through our Flying Eye Hospital, our online training platform Cybersight, and hands-on training in local hospitals, we give doctors and nurses the skills they need to save sight in their own communities, now and for years to come.

Each iris photography from this campaign helps tell these stories — and funds the care that restores sight.